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Show On key IIhII'n trialA ol (uilly. New York. -4. At tbe conclusion of Houghton's argument for delenee in ex-Mayor Hall's trial Tremaine commenced for the prosecution and in course of his argumer t called the attention of the jury to the fact t hat the defendant himself, when Dis trict Attorney, procured the conviction convic-tion of Judge Bogart for an act sirni-lar sirni-lar that for which he is now on trial, and then argued that the word 1 "corruptly" was a mere stir- 1 plusage, that the word "wilfully"! meant intentionally and licit j whatever his good faith, if he intended in-tended to do a forbidden act he was doing it wilfully. In that position the court sustained him. Tremaine spoke for three hours, and concluded by saying, that if the offence was a mere technical one tbe jury should so tfind, and trust the court to admin ifter a trifling technical penalty. He did not ask the jury to find that any niuucy wentinLo the defendant's pocket, and he ventured to say there was no prool whatever that it did. If they imnid a general verdict of guilty the defendant defend-ant could only be puni.-hed tin- one offence, or they could find him guilty on all or any of the counts or the vouchers. Judge Daniels commenced to charge the jury at 4:30 p. in. He said the defendant was substantially charged with wilful neglect of duty, and being a lawyer and a man of culture and ability, he should be held to a strict performance of the duty imposed up on him by law. If a public oflV-er wilfully neglects to perforin tbe duty imposcxi upon him by law hp is gniliy of a misdemeanor. The duty imposed im-posed upon the Board uf Audit was ef a personal and judicial character, which required investigation. They had no right to delegate that duly to anyone else. It was beyond doubt a personal duty required of the members mem-bers of the board. Did tbe defendant decline to perforin that duty, it he did designedly and purposely, he committed a misdemeanor, for it is not necessary that there should lie any design to defraud; it is enough if a party design to perform an act which creates a crime. An inspection of the many bills presented, pre-sented, would have revealed" frauds of a gross character; the judge instancing instanc-ing one bill from which was omitted the creditor's name. The public had the right to expect an examination of all of these bills. He instructed the jury that what the defence made of the duties being Loo arduous would not stand as an excuse, ex-cuse, for no officer can undertake a duty and wilfully neglect it. If the jury were satisfied the defendant had committed an offence, no matter how painful it might be to the defendant's fnonds, it was their duty to pronounce him guilty, and unless llbey had an abiding conviction of his guilt they must find him guilty. He instruct' d them to confine themselves to the indictment in-dictment charging the defendant with wilfully and intentionally intention-ally omitting to perform the duties prescribed by law. .Judge Daniels also instructed the jury that there was no evidence of conspiracy between Hall and his associates, and nothing connected him with the rr-..1wIl.L.r.t V,,llu Tbe jury retired at six o'clock. At eight o'clock they returned and were instructed, in answer to queries from tbe foreman, that tbe simple act of neglect of duty, if wilful, would warrant war-rant a verdict of guilty, and that the jury were themselves the judges whether this act was or was not wilful. The jury again retired, and at 10. SO o'clock they entered tbe court-room. In answer to the usual inquiries, they I replied that they had found a verdict of not guiity. At Ibis announcement the audience broke into a thunder of applause, which the Court did not ; object to, and after the lapse of about j 10 minutes the Court was adjourned until Monday. |